Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #401: Tuesday Review — Sunday's celebrations, Balo, Gio, the midfield

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Vince, Watke and Belz talk through the various celebrations late Sunday in Las Vegas, Balogun's impact, Gio's impact, the midfield setup going forward, and BJ Callaghan getting gently corrected by Pulisic in the locker room after Mexico. The full episode, nearly another hour including discussion of Mexico's woes, Chris Richards' ascendance and a serious conversation about Berhalter's return, is available to patrons. Link right here below.----Scuffed is an ad-free podcast. Support that and get exclusive episodes once a week, plus access to the Discord and live call-in shows, by signing up for our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffed Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From the USSF approved territories of Georgia and Kentucky, and also from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, this is the Monday Review. This is the Monday review on Tuesday, because we had to recap that glorious win over Canada yesterday. Waki, how are we doing? How are we? We're flying.

We're fantastic. Yes. Are an eagle soaring through the air? Would you say we're soaring flying? Yeah. There's not a star in heaven that we can't reach. That's exactly what the case fits. Yes.

Well, in that case, it seems like we're feeling very similar to the team. We're right in sync with them. It got great things happening. We're looking forward to B.J. Callahan managing the Gold Cup. Then after that, Greg Burhalter comes back, I think everyone really misses on some level. Everybody is. Everyone. one, even, even the, the furthest attractors, they, they needed this, um, they, they, they needed the foil.

You know, they needed Greg to, you know, to be able to bring up, to be able to, uh, to troll everybody, to be able to argue. And, you know, uh, this is, it does seem to energize them. It does seem to energize them. Yeah. It, it energizes them. It energizes them. It might be the community that they have found, which, which, which, you know, may or may not be a good thing for us. But it's probably a good thing for them. Everybody needs to find where they fit in within this ecosystem. So. Beautiful.

Yeah. I do wonder if we've gotten to like the end of the road with the Burrhalter Hitler memes. I don't know. Maybe maybe it's just a new beginning. I can't say. Every, you know, every new beginning, right? It's crazy. I mean, we're going to have to filter through a lot of stuff.

And, you know, it's always going to. going to be a landmine whenever you type out them words or or that word even or those three letters ggg but this what we had the discord for in it so i can so i can stay away now adam play the ball again audio where he says i feel a part of something yes okay we really really do support each other i've only been i've only been here a short amount of time but already i'm uh i feel a part of it and i feel a part of something bigger so i mean it's a great feeling a part of something bigger Love to see it. Love to see it. And, you know, when we talk about Greg, it seems that, you know, we have the biggest detractors on one end of the spectrum.

And then all the way on the other end, on the far, far, I mean, whether you want it to be the right or left side, seems to be the players. seem to be the players and it seems that a strong campaign from them like it at least played some significant part in Greg Burhol to get in the job

yeah it feels that way that's an interesting question though who's who's on the right end of the political spectrum here and who's on the left end of the political spectrum I'm not to think about that okay yeah it does seem to me not completely straightforward yeah

So I would say some people would say that the conservative nature of Greg Burlter, that any supporters might be on the right, might be on the right. I don't know. I don't know, though. I'm just spitball. It's going to take further examination. And I know we have a couple political science people that listen to this pod for sure, you know. So we might have to have a roundtable.

Yeah, we'll dig in at a later date. Can I, should we go through the celebration? Yeah. Let me play the trophy lift real quick because that's nice. A lot of joy up there on that stand. Yeah. For anyone who doesn't know it had only heard trophy lifts, they're holding it down and that's that chant going.

They throw it up when that yell happens. It's pretty cool. It's a beautiful thing. Desk carried the trophy around the rail, the stands after that. The people touch it. It was Mexican fans getting in a line of touch that. He's letting everybody touch it. He's a man of the people.

Then Weston and Pulitzer did some confetti angels out on the floor, the field. I feel like this is a Weston specialty. Anytime you get some confetti on a field, you will see Weston McKinney doing confetti angels. It doesn't matter if it's, you know, his future Gold Cup testimonial that we end up winning, you know, when he's 35 or whatever. Right. He's going to do it. Yeah, Weston did a lot of things out there in the celebration. There's so many that I kind of stopped keeping track of them.

Well, let me name a few. Well, later on, he ate Kane's chicken out of the trophy, dipped it in some sauce that was in the top of the trophy. Yes. Even before that, he had a GoPro. He was out there dancing around with the GoPro. He saw a guy who had deliberately ripped his jersey. and, you know, they had a nice moment together, pointed at each other.

Beautiful. He grabbed a couple of water, I think, and threw it up in the air and then let it fall on top of him as though it was rain. Yeah. There's like that clip, right, of when, so I think this is the first time that Weston comes on screen. You know what I'm saying? During the celebration, we're like, you don't even. basically the game's over. You see the players going crazy or whatever.

All of a sudden, I know where it's Weston with the GoPro, and he's doing his happy dance. And this is a dance I've seen many a time before. It's his Western at peak excitement. Where he's just, you know, bouncing from left to right. There was a little gyration in there, too. Mm-hmm. So not too much to be sleazy, but, you know, a tasteful gyration.

Tasteful gyration from Weston. I appreciate them for keeping it within those parameters there. And yeah, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there's nobody, uh, that you would rather want with, with, with fresh legs when, when, when you're about to, as a team, go celebrate. Yeah. And then Weston McKinney. Yeah. Yeah. He was, he was, he was, he was important when they needed him. Right. Right. So, exactly. What else? What else? What else in a celebration. Oh, he got, he had a dance off with Johnny Socker, Weston did.

They called it a dance off really. They just went dance stuff together. Johnny Socker, you can tell he's from Brazil when he dances. I got to say. He's got a, he's got a little bit of extra verve. Is that what you're saying? He's just good, just a good dancer. Yeah.

Poolsoc isn't though. Still, he's fine. So with Johnny, you know, he hasn't, so I don't, so I don't, like I don't know where it stands now, but, but I know at one point his, his English wasn't, wasn't the best. Wasn't the best. I assume it's getting better. But also, you know, the, the thing that whenever there's like a language problem or something, whether it's like somebody at work or like anything, the one thing you can always bond over is like physical comedy. dancing, anything like that. And there's Johnny, man.

It was beautiful to see. It was beautiful to see. He was connecting in probably the best way with this team that he can't. Yes. He taught, seems to have taught the guys a Brazilian song. They were singing that on the bus together.

Let me play it. They have impressive command over those lyrics, it seems to me. Yeah. It sounds like at least four or five voices going at it. Polisic got slid along the ground like a bowling ball in the locker room. Yeah. It looks like they did go to a club after at the wind.

I think that really stuck out to me was the cocktail waitresses bringing over a West I'm sorry from Diego sign. If you ever gotten bottle service in a club, you know, you can order the bottles. You can also get a sign and get that sign customized, whether it's like happy birthday, blah, blah, blah, kiss my foot. You know what I'm saying. But this one in particular says, Wes, I'm sorry, from Diego. Yeah. So maybe they've patched things up. Well, it looks like maybe he was trying to patch something up.

Did we, he's, this Diego is 20, the famous 29. Yeah. Fortunately. We're not talking about the fired Mexican national team coach. Wes, I'm sorry for the red car. Yeah, that's 29, probably. Chris Richards was in the club, Anthony Robinson, Luca de LaToree, Miles Robinson. Those are the four that I've seen.

Looks like they're having a good time, you know, as you do. Great time. Great time. We also got, well, actually, I don't know if it's a geo in a club or not. Yeah, you know what? I'm a, I don't know. I don't know. How strict are they about age? Like, would they let a, like, a soccer star in if they're underage? in a club in Vegas It's a good question It's a good question I'm not sure

Were you surprised at how good Baligan was On Sunday night? Surprised I mean Was he as good as you thought Or better What could you go ahead Um

I guess he was about what I thought I was pleased to see him do it I haven't I hadn't really seen him play all that much So I don't have a ton of a very specific their expectations. Right. Yeah.

For me, this is what I was hoping for, right? I think we talked about it on the Monday review as far as just like the fact that we could potentially have a striker that could give us some pitch control in some areas where we have never had, yeah,

never had it within the Greg Burrhalter era. Maybe Jice was the strongest with his ability just to like continue make runs. Yeah. And create space that way.

But yeah, man. Like, like, and, you know, I was listening to the recap yesterday. You all did. And, like, when he really got cooking and the swivels were swiveling. Yep. I mean, it was, it was beautiful to see, man. And the, and Flo's ability to, to be able to take snapshots, man. Just coming off, you know, off the chest swivel, boom, off the chest header.

I mean, which I've never seen before. But it was. I've seen that before either. It was a valiant effort. Um, yeah. Uh, this was what I was hoping for. This is what I was hoping for. And I think that is just a huge variable that's going to change a lot of,

it's going to change a lot of things, man. Like if we had them, because I recently rewatched the Wales match, right? Hmm. And, you know, uh, so in that match famously, Josh Sargent was isolated. I think part of that was by design. He was, uh, trying to occupy centerbacks to allow Christian. space. Like, if you watch the match, like, he's not showing to the ball at all.

And really, it's just Christian standing over top of Josh. And Josh is supposed to be like some type of decoy or something. But if we have a real striker in there, I think that works much better, much better, man. And it was encouraging to see. We got a real, we got a real, real, real striker. A game changer, even. But really, yeah. Seriously.

Mm-hmm. Well, we know who Wea and Pulisic are, and they were who they are in this tournament, and they were great. And, you know, I mean, Pulisic didn't have the best game on Sunday night, but that's fine. He scored two goals against Mexico. But moving back in the field, what about Gio? Like, what a wonderful camp for him. It was beautiful, and I forgot where this popped up. But it came out that Gio and Balo were the ones, like, really tearing up camp.

allegedly. And to see it come to fruition in the games, good. And like I said about Mexico, I'm a solo pod. That was almost more encouraging of a performance than Canada for me. We already knew that he could get up for a big game,

like Mexico, right? We saw it in 2021 and do some stuff. But yeah, just in the midfield, be able to control the space, win duels, do some things defensively. That was cool.

And then, of course, Canada, he provided some moments of magic that we've all been waiting for. All been waiting for from Gio. Yep. He also was just an incredible teammate all weekend, you know, like, extremely encouraging. As you pointed out, Waki, very consistent and outstanding in his goal celebrations with teammates. And then after. Did Pepey run to him? I believe so, yeah.

and they had a warm embrace. Yeah, he was coming really strong into huddles, hitting folks on the back of the head. Really emphatic. I just want to reiterate how good he looks with his hair blonde like that. I know Scali was the first one to do it and Gio kind of followed suit, but Gio, you know, he comes out the winner on that, I think.

I think it was good restraint by Gio, because Scali went kind of almost silvery with his. Right, right, exactly. Which it would have been tempting to do, but he kind of knew like, no, I don't need that. I can stop here. Man, man, look at Bells. He's over at like, he, you, so you sound like Megan Rapino.

Looking like a Zaddy, huh? Is that you're telling me, Bells? I don't, he looks good, man, don't you think? Yeah. Also, on the, on the teammate thing, I don't know if we saw a single body language issue. um like like one time i don't i don't think i don't think so i might have to go back and rewatch but yeah i know a minor gesticulation on the field at something but you know

we're gonna have to live with a little bit of that i think i'm okay with a little bit i did like that on that uh i can't remember which goal it was but we're in transition it's the one that way i plays across okay geo has his someone tweeted out geo has his hand up showing him he's open from like, oh yeah, 25 yards find the play. That was great. There's a problem that is just really funny.

Yeah, that's a screenshot from Bob Morocco. And that was on the second Mexican goal. So when Tim has the ball and is about to cross it to pulley, you see, you see Gio, like, I mean, he's nowhere close to the box.

He's nowhere close to the box. And his hand is up. He's like, yo, I'm open for it. for this cutback. You're going to have to wait about two seconds. Just hold that ball, 10 for two seconds for me. But I'm open, though. And you know, it's nice to have that other option. It is. For Kim. Greg and I talked about this yesterday. It seems like we're both in favor of a Musa McKenney-Rena midfield. And I think from the call-in show, it sounded like you were to, Vince. For sure.

Waki, do you want to disagree? or? I just, it's not that I disagree. I just wasn't ready to, I wasn't expecting it. And the idea of Tyler Adams's not starting when he's there. It's not something that ever occurred to me. And it's just a lot to process. Ultimately, I think I can get there with you guys

because I think it's important we have a United Front on this stuff. But I'd love to hear from you, you know, where you're coming from on this. Well, I want to hear Vince on it too, but I feel like it is going to be difficult to sit Tyler if he's healthy in an important game. You know, there's going to be, I don't know how that's going to go exactly. But we just get too much forward progression from the other three and not enough from him. I think the defensive gap between him and Eunice is closing, at least on the evidence of Sunday night. and and Tyler's not perfect defensively either and he's just never been comfortable

like this has been a this has been something I've said about him since he was at Red Bull I'm talking about in New York he's just never been comfortable playing on the half term not fully comfortable no and that gets in the way of us building out of the back and being threatening I think to a certain extent

so that's where I'm coming from he uh okay so you y'all remember last year uh right around this time actually um last window well well excuse me last year in the june window when after qualifying Greg put Eunice next to Tyler and was like you know Tyler wasn't good enough he basically said Tyler wasn't good enough with the ball in qualifying and so we put somebody next to him to be able to help facilitate build up it like the person next to him was Eunice but uh and that's when we first saw like a nominal double pivot from the national team, you know. And so, yeah, just to drive that point home bells, you know, like during qualifying,

he was kind of a limited factor for us. And in my opinion, in my opinion, when we're playing El Salvador, playing Panama, playing Costa Rica or whatever. And we got to do things against a set block or whatever. and all the time, man, I think most of our tempo issues were coming from Tyler. Just being un-I don't know, like undecisive with where to go to the ball. I do think that it has improved quite a bit over this past season. Like even with leads, we saw him start doing some stuff on the half-turn,

like just being willing to take the ball in turn on the half-turn, which is cool. He made a, I think there was. There's one leads goal sequence where it came with him receiving the ball in a half turn and turning and passing forward, which is something that he doesn't do often at all. My main thing with Tyler, I've said this before, but you know, we get new patrons all the time. We can't keep them off of us. We can't keep them off of us, guys. But usually when he's facing forward and receives the ball, he can make a line breaking pass.

It's on the half turn where he's not seeing the pitcher. of course, where these things come into into play. And yes, for me, I just believe that having as many game changes as possible on the pitch would be the way to go. But it's all, it's probably going to be a moot point. You know what I'm saying? This is just a discussion point, you know, because of injuries and all those different types of things. And I will say, I was thinking about this last night.

to go to an earlier point, the fact that we have flow in the first place might change everything. Like, who knows, if you put MMA with flow, it might look like a whole different, you know?

It's just, that's how much of a game change. That's how much of a game change. I think he is. But, yeah, yeah. Currently, I would love to see Gio, Musa McKinney,

midfield, which, which to some people might be sacrilege. Might be sacrilege, but I've always just kind of, I've always kind of been somewhat lukewarm on Tyler as a player, to be completely honest with you. Go ahead, Wachie.

No, you go ahead. I mean, it's true that we're, the likelihood of all four of those players being healthy at the same time is, you know, it's not a guarantee. So that may not be something we have to, face and there's going to be different games where you know different different looks are different looks makes sense but you know as as greg would say mma sets like a really high floor for us i do think like for a ceiling we need we need geo on the field and i don't want to take tim way off and uh so who comes off i don't think you should be moosa mackenny uh yeah i mean you guys are making a lot of

sense there so i mean but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but The thing is when it comes down to it, I don't know if you can take the captain, you know. You got hashtag the coach taking hashtag the captain off to field. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. It's easier said than done, especially when, you know, when the player is the captain. Well, as a lot of people are saying, it's a good problem to have, you know?

Beautiful. Waki, you had something to say about us keeping our mentality from Mexico into Canada? I mean, the truth of it is It's just because there was an audio clip I like So I tried to come up with a segue to go into it Okay I obviously have no opinion about that whatsoever But

I want to hear the clip Enjoy it Enjoy it because you guys earned it Three zero guys That's amazing So enjoy it And be humble with you guys Enjoy it tonight

Enjoy tonight But we're doing the final Yeah, we're here to be Canada. That's a great point. See, I just love that teamwork between BJ and Christian and the locker room. Yeah, Reverend Pulisic with the good word there. Does it seem a little bit like Pulisic's in charge and not BJ there? A little bit.

I don't think we have to look at it as having Christian Pulitzer's son BJ. No, I'm saying. He's just adding in a little, you know. He's just adding in a little, you know, he's just adding in a little, a little. little something he, so he feels like it needs to be said, you know, we got some, we got some hard parties on the team. He's like, hey, hey. So, Chris and is basically saying like, like, yo, I know that this is implied, but I'm going to go ahead and get this out here. So, so y'all have no damn excuse. Yeah, that's true. It's just, it was a purely practical

thing to say. Well, BJ was getting a little carried away with the enjoyment part, I thought, you know? Well, what it was. I, yeah. That clip came a little bit out of context because what he, that way he gets there is he starts by saying, you know, I understand the deal with the red cards, but we do need to take accountability there. And then he's shifted tones to, but we've won and you should feel happy. I see.

And that's what it was part of. He just kind of forgot that the Canada match was coming up for a minute. No, I'm just joking around. I think BJ's done a great job. thought his, you know, his in-game management on Sunday was quite good. He seemed to put the right people in. They didn't all perform, but that's not necessarily on him. And, and then as the game progressed, he battened down the hatches, kept things, kept things moving. We didn't, we weren't ever seriously threatened in the sense of losing or, or getting, allowing Canada to equalize.

We're going to take a break for patrons and be back with some discussion, well, some laughing about Mexico's coach getting fired and some discussion of Chris Richards, a Matt Crocker sizzle reel, a serious discussion. We've sort of done a lighthearted version so far, but a serious discussion of Burrhalter's return and some of our misgivings, or at least my misgivings, and, you know, how widespread, honestly, the backlash against him is.

It seems like it's not just a few people on Twitter. There's a lot of people who don't want. want him to come back as the coach. So we'll talk about all that. Uh, if you're a patron after the break. If you are not a patron, uh, you can join us. The link is in the show notes. Uh, $2, $5 or $10 a month gets you the Monday reviews and a lot of other stuff. In any case, thank you for listening. We'll see you.